TVU Networks Helps Duke Baseball Team Stream Coverage to ESPN
Off-Campus Home Field and On-Campus Control Room Equipped with TVU RPS for Live Multi-Camera Remote Production
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As part of a multi-million-dollar renovation of its stadium and video production facilities for sports, the heart of Duke University’s Blue Devil Network went from a former file room and one production truck to Blue Devil Tower – a 3,500-square foot space with three control rooms, video-editing suites and a studio. Unfortunately, no matter how stellar the setup, without a fiber connection link to the university’s home baseball field six miles away, it was of little consequence to producers of Duke baseball coverage for ESPN’s ACC Network Extra, the ESPN streaming platform for the ACC conference. For the baseball season, the Blue Devil Network typically produces between 15-20 games for the ACC Network Extra.
The Blue Devil Network wanted to produce games at the off-campus Durham Bulls stadium but have the video sent back to the new on-campus control room for distribution to the ACC Network Extra – without adding equipment, crew or changing the workflow.
“We typically produce all our sports broadcasts from the new control rooms,” said Chad Lampman, Executive Director of the Blue Devil Network, Duke Athletics. “But, because we had no connectivity to the ballpark last year, our baseball coverage wasn’t what it could have been had we been able to use our new control room. We couldn’t take advantage of our fully functional control rooms for the baseball broadcasts. We needed to figure out how we could possibly use our control rooms without having to reinvent the wheel at the Durham Bulls ballpark.”
Lampman began looking for a solution and was intrigued by TVU Network’s video-over-IP delivery options. After seeing demonstrations and speaking with TVU technical personnel, he identified TVU RPS as the ideal solution for Duke baseball coverage. TVU RPS (Remote Production System) consists of a transmitter and a receiver. It allows for synchronized, frame-accurate, genlocked live multi-camera remote production. TVU RPS provides low-latency, multi-channel transmission over standard Internet connections using existing studio equipment and staff.
After testing TVU RPS extensively in the pre-season, staffers at the Blue Devil Network were impressed with their experience and determined TVU RPS was exactly the solution they were looking for. All six camera feeds from the Panasonic AG-HPX500 cameras at the Durham Bulls field are now sent to TVU RPS at the on-site control room, encoded, and transmitted over the Duke network back to the control room on campus where they are decoded and streamed to ESPN’s ACC Network Extra.
After testing TVU RPS extensively in the pre-season, staffers at the Blue Devil Network were impressed with their experience and determined TVU RPS was exactly the solution they were looking for. All six camera feeds from the Panasonic AG-HPX500 cameras at the Durham Bulls field are now sent to TVU RPS at the on-site control room, encoded, and transmitted over the Duke network back to the control room on campus where they are decoded and streamed to ESPN’s ACC Network Extra.
The TVU RPS transmitter encodes up to six synchronized SDI sources and transmits IP video from the remote location to a studio-based TVU RPS receiver, which in turn decodes six accurately synchronized SDI outputs. TVU RPS’s user-friendly interface grants control over all aspects of transmission, including bit-rate and latency, and gives previews of all six channels. TVU RPS also provides up to two low-latency return video feeds sent from the studio back out to the field. VLAN tunnels on RPS decoders enable communication between the studio and the field over a private network, so that it feels like everyone is in the same building.
“The most surprising part of this installation was that it worked so well,” said Lampman. “We had no issues. With the low latency of the video, no one noticed the difference between the live coverage from the control room at the field or from the on-campus control room. All six feeds looked great.”
Among the system’s key benefits, Lampman sites its straightforward operation, ability to quickly troubleshoot any question or issue, ease of use with the online GUI, and the system’s overall performance. “We knew from the get-go with the unit, that it worked great and was easy to use,” said Lampman.
TVU RPS covers all the action of a major sporting event using just wired high-bandwidth Internet. It synchronizes footage coming from multiple locations and angles on the field and makes it possible to quickly and effectively deliver a broadcast to a worldwide audience.
